The Bungle Family first appeared with the title Home, Sweet Home in 1918, alternating in the first year with other series until 1919, when it came to be published in a daily basis. The author was Harry J. Tuthill, and the newspaper it made its debut was The New York Evening Mail. The series lasted until 1945, with a break between 1942 and 1943. In 1924, in consequence of the merging of the newspaper with the Evening Telegram, the rights were purchased by the McClure Syndicate and later by the McNaught Syndicate. The series then changed to The Bungle Family, and new characters were introduced during the 1930s.

The Bungle Family achieved great success, and it portrayed the life of a lower middle class urban family, living in a modest apartment, their economic and domestic problems, trouble with the landlord, with bill collectors and, above all, endless disputes between husband and wife, George and Josephine, who fighted over anything, and who were frequently visited by the police due to complaints from the neighbours. This originated quite a number of comic scenes that contributed to the popularity of the series, since the readers saw in the events depicted a bit of their daily lives.

From the time the author added secondary characters, among which is worth mentioning the daughter, Peggy, and her on-and-off boyfriend named Hartford Oakdale, a smooth talk and pompous con-man.

There were some reprints in Famous Funnies (according to Toonopedia, although Wikipedia mentions Feature Funnies, which we think is wrong) and Big Shot Comics, and a complete 1928 year run by Hyperion Press, an out of print volume that we have in our collection and whose cover we reproduce in this post.

Tuthill, born and raised in Chicago, left his home town at the age of 15 to travel in the midwestern U.S. territory in a carnival like so many others of the first decades of the twentieth century. After moving to Saint Louis, he went through quite a number of jobs, and only managed to achieve some success as a cartoonist when he was already in his thirties. After taking art classes at night, he finally started working for The St. Louis Star. And when his Bungle Family series was successful it was published in over 100 North American newspapers. He worked mainly in his St. Louis studio from where the strips were sent to New York.